


Loyalty

by Ferith12



Series: Love, Joy, Hope [4]
Category: DCU
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-29 14:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6380530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferith12/pseuds/Ferith12





	Loyalty

The acrobat was put back on missions soon after. It was annoying though, because he was now being constantly watched by other talons stationed around the city for the express purpose of keeping an eye on him. That meant that he couldn’t fly. He wanted to. He wanted to so much, and it was great being able to want, to remember the flying and the glory of it. But he couldn’t do it.

It wasn’t like everything had changed since he had saved Jason. He didn’t feel things all the time. He didn’t feel them most of the time.

Really the only difference was that he now had hallucinations of Jason dying a thousand horrible deaths. He worried about him too, sometimes, even without the hallucinations.

It didn’t mean that he cared about the people he was sent to kill any more now. He could still look them in the eye and feel nothing, at least at the time. Once in a while, he was capable of feeling. Then he would think back on how easy it had been to kill and be at once relieved and saddened. He was still a monster. Sometimes he knew he was a monster now, and sometimes he didn’t.

But he was a great actor. When he saw hallucinations he didn’t even pause. Because he knew they were watching. He grew extremely good at seeing the talons. He did not hide when he saw them, or even acknowledge that he had seen them. He knew he wasn't supposed to have. In all his movements he was stealthy, but not quite so stealthy that the well trained talons couldn’t see him. In all things he was the perfect talon. And gradually they left him alone.

Gradually, the spies sent to watch him grew fewer and fewer. They believed him to still be perfect. They believed that he had had one uncharacteristic outburst of emotion and that it was over with the death of the thing that had caused it. And soon enough the acrobat was free to fly again.

He loved it and he hated it, this new ability to love and hate. It was a little like how he loved and hated the court and his grandfather. He loved them because they were there, and he hated them because the made him a monster. He loved that he could feel because it was amazing, and it rescued him from all the emptiness of before, but he hated it because it made him realize what a monster he was.

It would have probably driven him crazy if he was capable of feeling very often. For the most part he was empty, it was only once in a while that the realization of feelings would come crashing down on him, and still it was never when he was killing. When he was killing it was like there was a switch in his brain, that turned all his love and joy and compassion off so that he was merely a tool, merely a talon.

And as time wore on, those times when he felt slowly grew fewer and fewer, until at last it was almost as if nothing had changed at all.

But there were still little differences.  The Talon's chafing under the will of the Court had increased, as well as his longing to please it.  Talon could still WANT things.  The things were simple, but they were there.  "I want to fly"  "I want to please the Court" even "I want to rest"  "I want to get rid of the icky blood on my clothes".  They weren't strong wantings, but they were there, he could have them, he could think, more often and more clearly, in terms of I.  He had elected of his own will to go against orders, made a choice that was all his own, and that changed everything.  He was a person now, and perhaps he was a terrible, narcissistic person most of the time, but he was a person, and being a person of any sort was miles above being merely a tool.

And beneath it all, mostly unnoticed and forgotten, but deep and strong and constant, was the knowledge that he had a little brother.  The Acrobat had a little brother, and he loved him with what little of his heart dared to beat into existence.  Because the Acrobat had loved, therefore the acrobat WOULD love.  Because above all, he was loyal.


End file.
